Operation: Barbarossa
| End = | Location = Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Western Russia| Attacker = Germany and Minor Axis| Defender = Soviet Union| Result = Axis Partial Victory| }} Overview , 21 June 1941 to 5 December 1941: ]] Operation Barbarossa began just before dawn on 22 June 1941. The Germans wrecked the wire network in all Soviet western military districts to undermine Soviet communications. At 03:15 on 22 June 1941 ninety-nine (including fourteen Panzer divisions and ten motorized) of 190 German divisions deployed against the Soviet Union began the offensive from the Baltic to the Black seas. They were accompanied by ten Romanian divisions, nine Romanian and four Hungarian brigades. On the same day the Baltic, Western and Kiev Special military districts were renamed to Northwestern, Western and Southwestern Fronts respectively. For a month the offensive conducted on three axes was completely unstoppable as the Panzer forces encircled hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops in huge pockets that were then reduced by slower-moving infantry armies while the panzers continued the offensive, following the Blitzkrieg doctrine. As part of this high tempo campaign the German air force began immediate attacks on Soviet airfields, destroying much of the forward-deployed Soviet Air Force airfield fleets consisting of largely obsolescent types before their pilots had a chance to leave the ground. Army Group North's objective was Leningrad via the Baltic States. Comprising the 16th and 18th armies and the 4th Panzer Group, this formation advanced through Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the Russian Pskov and Novgorod regions. In Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, they were supported by the local insurgents, liberating almost the whole of Lithuania, northern Latvia and southern Estonia prior to the arrival of the German forces. Tartu in the 1941 Summer War. By Major Riho Rõngelep and Brigadier General Michael Hesselholt Clemmesen (2003). Baltic Defence Review 9 Army Group Centre comprised two panzer groups (2nd and 3rd), which advanced to the north and south of Brest-Litovsk and converged east of Minsk, followed by the 2nd, 4th, and 9th armies. The combined panzer force reached the Beresina River in just six days, 650 km (400 miles) from their start lines. The next objective was to cross the Dnieper river, which was accomplished by 11 July. Following that, their next target was Smolensk, which fell on 16 July, but the engagement in the Smolensk area halted the German advance until mid-September, effectively disrupting the blitzkrieg. Army Group South, with 1st Panzer Group, 6th, 11th and 17th armies, was tasked with advancing through Galicia and into Ukraine. Their progress, however, was rather slow, and took heavy casualties in a major tank battle. With the corridor towards Kiev secured by mid-July, the 11th Army, aided by two Romanian armies, fought its way through Bessarabia towards Odessa. The 1st Panzer Group turned away from Kiev for the moment, advancing into the Dnieper bend (western Dnipropetrovsk Oblast). When it joined up with the southern elements of Army Group South at Uman, the Group captured about 100,000 Soviet prisoners in a huge encirclement. As the Red Army withdrew behind the Dnieper and Dvina rivers, the Soviet Stavka turned its attention to evacuating as much of the western regions' industry as it could, dismantled and packed onto flatcars, away from the front line, re-establishing it in more remote areas of the Urals, Caucasus, Central Asia and south-eastern Siberia. Most civilians were left to make their own way East as only the industry-related workers could be evacuated with the equipment, and much of the population was left behind to the mercy of the invading forces. With the capture of Smolensk, and the advance to the Luga river, Army groups Centre and North had completed their first major objective: to get across, and hold the "land bridge" between the Dvina and Dnieper. The advance to Moscow, now only 400 km (250 miles) away, could now begin. The German generals argued for an immediate offensive towards Moscow, but Hitler overruled them, citing the importance of Ukrainian agricultural and mining resources, and heavy industry if under German possession, not to mention the massing of Soviet reserves in the Gomel area between Army Group Centre's southern flank and the bogged-down Army Group South's northern flank. The order was issued to 2nd Panzer Group to turn south and advance towards Kiev. This took the whole of August and into September, but when 2nd Panzer Group joined up with 1st Panzer Group at Lokhvitsa on 14 September 665,000 Soviet prisoners were captured as Kiev was surrendered on 19 September. Immediately after the start of the German invasion, the NKVD massacred large numbers of prisoners in most of their prisons in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, while the remainder was to be evacuated in death marches.Robert Gellately. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf, 2007 ISBN 1-4000-4005-1 p. 391 Most of them were political prisoners, imprisoned and executed without a trial. Encyklopedia PWN, Zbrodnie Sowickie W Polsce Axis Partial Victory Axis conquers vast areas of the Soviet Union and inflicts heavy losses on the Red Army, but fails in its overall strategic goal of defeating the USSR in a Blitzkrieg campaign. Composition of Forces Composition of the Axis forces Halder as the Chief of General Staff OKH concentrated the following Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe forces for the operation: Army Group North (Heeresgruppe Nord) (Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb) staged in East Prussia with (26 divisions): * 16th Army (16. Armee) (Ernst Busch) * 4th Panzer Group (Panzergruppe 4) (Hoepner) * 18th Army (18. Armee) (Georg von Küchler) * Air Fleet 1 (Luftflotte eins) (Alfred Keller) Army Group Centre (Heeresgruppe Mitte) (Fedor von Bock) staged in Eastern Poland with (49 divisions): * 4th Army (4. Armee) (Günther von Kluge) * 2nd Panzer Group (Panzergruppe 2) (Guderian) * 3rd Panzer Group (Panzergruppe 3) (Hermann Hoth) * 9th Army (9. Armee) (Adolf Strauß) * Air Fleet 2 (Luftflotte zwei) (Albert Kesselring) Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd) (Gerd von Rundstedt) was staged in Southern Poland and Romania with (41 divisions): * 17th Army (17. Armee) (Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel) ** Slovak Expeditionary Force (Čatloš) ** Royal Hungarian Army "Fast Moving Army Corps"(Miklós) - Initially part of a larger "Karpat Group" (Karpat Gruppe) * 1st Panzer Group (Panzergruppe 1) (von Kleist) * 11th Army (Eugen Ritter von Schobert) ** Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia (Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Russia, CSIR) (Messe) * 6th Army (6. Armee) (Walther von Reichenau) ** Romanian 3rd Army (Dumitrescu) ** Romanian 4th Army (Constantinescu) * Air Fleet 4 (Luftflotte vier) (Alexander Löhr) Staged from Norway a smaller group of forces consisted of: * Army High Command Norway (Armee-Oberkommando Norwegen) (Nikolaus von Falkenhorst) with two Corps * Air Fleet 5 (Luftflotte fünf) (Stumpff) Numerous smaller units from all over Nazi-occupied Europe, like the "Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism" (Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme), supported the German war effort. Composition of the Soviet Forces At the beginning of the German Reich’s invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 the Red Army areas of responsibility in the European USSR were divided into four active Fronts. More Fronts would be formed within the overall responsibility of the three Strategic Directions commands which corresponded approximately to a German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) Army Group (Heeresgruppen) in terms of geographic area of operations. On Zhukov's orders immediately following the invasion the Northern Front was formed from the Leningrad Military District, the North-Western Front from the Baltic Special Military District, the Western Front was formed from the Western Special Military District, and the Soviet Southwestern Front was formed from the Kiev Special Military District. The Southern Front was created on the 25 June 1941 from the Odessa Military District. The first Directions were established on 10 July 1941, with Voroshilov commanding the North-Western Strategic Direction, Timoshenko commanding the Western Strategic Direction, and Budyonny commanding the South-Western Strategic Direction.Keith E. Bonn (ed.), Slaughterhouse: Handbook of the Eastern Front, Aberjona Press, Bedford, PA, 2005, p.299 The forces of the North-Western Direction were:John Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad, Cassel Military Paperbacks, 2003 edition, p.172 * The Northern Front (Colonel General Markian Popov) bordered Finland and included the 14th Army, 7th Army, 23rd Army and smaller units subordinate to the Front commander. * The North-Western Front (Colonel General Fyodor Kuznetsov) defended the Baltic region and consisted of the 8th Army, 11th Army, and the 27th Army and other front troops (34 divisions). * The Northern and Baltic Fleets The forces of the Western Direction were: * The Western Front (General Dmitry Grigoryevitch Pavlov) had the 3rd Army, 4th Army, 10th Army and the Army Headquarters of the 13th Army which coordinated independent Front formations (45 divisions). The forces of the South-Western Direction were: * The South-Western Front (Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos) was formed from the 5th Army, 6th Army, 12th Army and the 26th Army as well as a group of units under Strategic Direction command (45 divisions). * The Southern Front (General Ivan Tyulenev) was created on 25 June 1941 with 9th Independent Army, 18th Army, 2nd and 18th Mechanized Corps (26 divisions). * The Black Sea Fleet Beside the Armies in the Fronts, there were a further six armies in the Western region of the USSR: 16th Army, 19th Army, 20th Army, 21st Army, 22nd Army and the 24th Army that formed, together with independent units, the Stavka Reserve Group of Armies, later renamed the Reserve Front nominally under Stalin's direct command. Source Article Category:Axis military operations Category:1941